Tuesday, April 10, 2012

"China said on Friday that within three to five years it planned to end the practice of transplanting organs from executed prisoners, a step that would address what for decades has been one of the country’s most criticized human rights issues.
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"Mr. Huang did not acknowledge any ethical issues involved in taking organs from prisoners. Instead, he raised a medical issue, saying that the rates of fungal and bacterial infection in organs taken from executed inmates were often high, which he said explained why the long-term survival rates of organ transplant recipients in China were consistently below those of other countries.

"Nicholas Bequelin, a senior researcher in Hong Kong for Human Rights Watch, welcomed the policy announcement, which the rights group has campaigned for since 1994. But he noted that Mr. Huang, who turns 66 this year, is about to retire, along with most of the country’s top political leadership.

"That means the next generation of political leaders and Health Ministry officials will have to deal with the problem of how to obtain enough organ donations voluntarily to offset the country’s heavy dependence on prisoners.

“It’s not clear to me the government is going to have the political will to fulfill this promise,” Mr. Bequelin said."
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